


A Study of the Inquisitor

by Aiyestel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alphabet Meme, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-10 12:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3290534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aiyestel/pseuds/Aiyestel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The alphabet meme for my inquisitor, Evie Trevelyan, as she navigates through her role as inquisitor. This won't always follow canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A is for Aware

When Evie wakes her hand is on fire. At least it feels like it.

In the unending moments between the Fade and consciousness she thinks she’s back in the circle tower…back before the world dissolved around them. Around her. She had been frightened then and she is frightened now.

The darkness recedes just a little and the figures around her make her think she is at her harrowing again. The Templars are waiting to strike her down if she should turn, if she is too weak for the magic that courses through her.

"Who are you?"

It is more of a demand than a question and the voice is strange…and female.

"I asked you a question!"

Evie can barely hold her head up but she rolls it to the side so she can see who is speaking to her. It is hard to see in this light. Hard to make out details. She seems tall, or perhaps it’s because she’s kneeling on the stone floor. Her eyes are slanted, accusing in their own way. She is weary. Full of anger and pain and disbelief.

"My name is Evelyn… Evie."

"Explain this."

Her hand is jerked up and for all that it feels as if it has been thrust into a fire it glows a sickly green. Green is not the color of fire. Not any fire she knows of anyway.

"What is this?!"

Her palm is sliced almost in half by the mark. It spark and spits like a fire does but the skin around it isn’t charred or burning. It is altogether unfamiliar and horrifying to her.

"I—I don’t know."

"You do not know?!"

Indignation. Disgust. Fury. Evie reads her like an open book. She does not tell the woman that; Evie knows she would not like it.

"What happened?" Evie asks.

"We should be asking you that!"

Pain explodes through her veins, up her arm and any reply is lost beneath her scream of pain.

"Explain yourself! Explain how you got this!"

She is jerked forward violently, her chin bangs against her chest before her head snaps back.

"We need her, Cassandra!"

There is a muted conversation between the two voices, then she is lifted, more gently this time.

"What happened… Please…"

The woman is less severe now, though she buries none of her emotions behind a mask. She is still angry. Still as deadly as she was before.

"It will be easier to show you."

It hurts her eyes, the light does, even though it’s overcast and snow drifts down to catch in her eye lashes as she stares at the broken sky.

And now she is aware.

Aware of the breach. Aware of the chaos around her. Aware of the glares she is earning simply for being…as if she isn’t used to that. She is a mage after all.

She is aware.

Aware that everything hurts and the world is forever changed.

Again.


	2. B is for Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie gets a little delirious from the blood loss.

"I’m…bleeding."

Dorian is crouching over her, the only hint of worry is in the slight widening of his eyes. He’s ripping something, a tunic maybe or a blanket.

"Yes, you little idiot. You are bleeding. That’s what happens when you get too close to bad guys with pointy knives. Now hush and let me attempt to play healer."

She reaches up and tries to touch his face but he bats her hand away. “Stop that. You’re distracting.”

"You’re distracting," she parrots back.

He stops momentarily to stare down at her. “You are delirious from shock and blood loss.”

"It’s a distinct possibility that you have a valid point, my mustached friend."

He opens his mouth to snap out a smart remark but instead just quirks his mouth up making his mustache twitch and doesn’t reply.

"Will I live?"

Dorian rolls his eyes. “Not if you don’t let me work.”

She frowns. “Cullen will be quite displeased, though Corypheus will probably throw a party. I wonder if he dances. Do you think he dances?”

He clamps a hand over her mouth. “Will you hush? I can hardly think about healing you if I’m preoccupied with a dancing darkspawn.”

"How is she?"

"Oh for the love of—-ask her! You two can distract each other while I make my hands glow!" Dorian snaps.

Varric’s face appears over hers and she grins up at him. Her face is smeared with blood but she is very much alive, for the moment. “Varric! Where were you?!”

"Out of range of those daggers, like you should have been."

"Pffffft! Where’s the fun in that?" She flaps her hand at him.

"In not getting stabbed."

"Stabbed, schmabbed. It happens to everyone."

Varric rubs his fingers against his forehead looking pained. “I’m not sure that’s true.”

“Hey Varric!”

"Yes?"

"Do you think nugs realize they’re nugs?"

"I think I’m too sober for this," Varric replies and Evie laughs.

"Them too!"

Dorian and Varric exchange a pained look. “She’s worse than when she’s drunk,” the other mage says. “Far worse.”

"I didn’t think it was possible."


	3. C is for Clarity

It happens in some little no name village in Ferelden when she’s accompanying Cullen on some business he’d had. A woman, younger than Evie by at least a few years, hurries up to her with a baby in her arms.

"Herald! Herald, please, a moment of your time. If it pleases you, your worship," she adds as an afterthought. Her cheeks are red from the cold and she hugs her child close as she catches her breath. Evie fears for a moment the woman is going to ask of her some miracle. Ask her to revive her ailing child or turn a failed harvest into enough food for winter.

She doesn’t.

"Would you—would you hold her? For just a moment?" Evie finds herself accepting the baby even as she fears she might drop it. The young woman looks down at her child fondly. "We named her after you, herald. Named her Evelyn."

The bundle in her arms squirms and Evie stares down at her, shocked that someone—anyone—would name their child after a mage. After her.

Her namesake throws a fist into the air and smashes her in the nose. It shocks them all enough that Evie begins to laugh and she cradles the baby a bit closer, just for a moment, in order to press her chapped lips to her namesake’s forehead.

"Andraste guide you, little one," she whispers and then hands the child back to her mother. "You honor me."

She is silent for a long time after that, her mind stretching over the fact that a woman, someone who didn’t even know her, had named her child in her honor. ‘

'It's not about me,' she finally tells herself. 'That must be it. It's about Andraste's herald. It could have been anyone.'

She tells herself that and promptly forgets it when they stop to make camp for the evening. Cullen’s men, their men—she was the inquisitor after all—were experienced in traveling and had camp set up in no time, fires roaring, tents pitched, and the smell of watery stew that barely qualified for stew if you asked Evie, wafting on the evening breeze.

"You’ve been awfully quiet."

His hands settle on her shoulders, and she feels the warmth of his breath on her neck as he leans close for just a moment. They were careful to maintain their professionalism in front of those who served beneath them.

"Just a lot on my mind," she says and his fingers squeeze her shoulders gently, teasing out a knot that had formed behind one shoulder blade without her noticing.

"Do you want to talk about it? I have time."

She smiles even as her head tips forward under his kneading fingers. “Thank you Cullen.”

Neither is sure if she’s thanking him for the offer, for the massage or for something else but they fall into silence and it isn’t until later when they’re lying together in her tent that he tries again.

"You’re sure you’re alright?"

She rolls over to face him in the darkness and he pulls her close, warm and comforting even in silence.

"That woman today in the village… she named her daughter after me. It was… unexpected."

His fingers fan out against her lower back and she curls closer to him.

"I suspect that half the girls born this year will be named Evelyn, or Evie. Probably next year too," he says with a small chuckle.

"But why? I—-I don’t get it. I’m just a mage."

"You’re more than that. More than you give yourself credit for. Some people see you as a symbol, a herald of their beloved Andraste. Others see you as a savior, as the only one who is fighting to protect them. To save them. They respect that. They respect you."

"Respect is curtsying when someone of better blood walks into the room. I’ve none to speak of. But naming a child. Cullen, what if I can’t live up to that? What if I’m not the person they expect me to be. If I’m not the savior they pray for?"

"You already are, that’s the beauty of it. They wouldn’t have honored you otherwise." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Win or lose, rain or shine, they have followed you and they continue to. You are their hope. You are their only promise of a tomorrow."

"I—-" she cuts herself off with a sigh and buries her face against his collarbone. "I don’t know, it all seems rather insane to me."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps you’re just too close to see." She hears the smile in his voice, feels it against her skin. She likes that he smiles more now.

Hope. She understands the concept; it’s clearer now. Perhaps that’s what she needs to strive for, to give them hope. It doesn’t have to be about a Maker or absent prophet. 

It just has to be about hope.


	4. D is for Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [AU - Evie sides with the templars instead of the mages. Playing with timelines here. Aftermath of Champions of the Just but with Evie and Cullen already having established a relationship.]

In the few days she has been back in Haven from Therinfall Redoubt she’s been quiet. Distant. He doesn’t read her nearly as well as she reads him but he sees the haunted looks she gets when there are lulls in the war room. When someone brings up the templars and what happened. There are long hours when he normally would find her helping Adan or pouring over schematics at the blacksmith’s where he cannot now find her anywhere.

It doesn’t occur to him until much later to look beneath his very feet. The dungeon in Haven has largely been forgotten. They hold no prisoners and the fact that a chantry should have cells beneath it is something he strives to forget. In fact he’s not sure why he goes down there at all. Perhaps part of him realizes it is the last place he hasn’t looked.

She is sitting on a cot in one of the cells. There is a desk, bookshelves lined with dusty tomes that look ready to fall apart should anyone open them. A washstand sits in one corner and the basin is wet, he notes, she’s been here for a while.

"Cullen."

Her voice is lined with an emotion he can’t quite put his finger on. The kind of unnamed hurt that tears at a person’s throat as the words force their way out. It sends a tremor down his spine; has he presumed too much? Was he wrong in what he thought was bothering her? Was it him? Them?

"I—I didn’t mean to disturb you—"

"Well you are."

He recoils as if she had struck him but she deflates before he can turn to leave. “Forgive me,” she says and her voice cracks. “That was wretched of me.” She holds out her hand to him and he hesitates for only a moment before he takes it. He is weak. He finds even in the short space of time he has known her he longs for each moment together they are given.

She bows her head as her fingers tighten around his, beckoning him closer. She is always so strong but here… he’s never seen her like this before. Her shoulders are hunched, shaking and he realizes she is crying.

The stone bites at his knees when he settles in front of her, gently taking her other hand from her face and raising both to his mouth. “You need only tell me what is wrong and I would make it right,” he whispers against her skin.

He had never seen her so undone.

"You can’t," she tells him. "Unless you can turn back time."

"I would still try."

That earns him a watery smile and she puts her arms around his neck and presses her cheek to his.

"I—I didn’t put everything in my report, about what happened at Therinfall Redoubt," she says. The soldier in him wants to tell her she should have told them everything she experienced, not withholding any detail, but he knows this isn’t the time and he trusts her enough to know if it were vital she would have forgone her own comfort in order to do so.

"I saw you there. Saw you and Leliana and Josephine…" He think he’s misheard her. They had been in Haven the whole time she was gone. "When the demon attacked me it took me into the fade and while time scarcely moved in this reality in the Fade I was lost there for hours it seemed."

"And you saw…us?"

She pulls back and her hazel eyes are filled with tears and pain. “I saw you. Locked in a cell because a demon stole my visage and led Thedas into ruin. Into the end of days. I saw you prepared for execution because you dared stand against me.”

"But it wasn’t you. You said it yourself. It was what would have happened if the demon had won, and it didn’t."

She shakes her head. “But it was me, you see? I was too weak to stand up against it. Too weak to fend it off. So it was me.”

"That is what the demon wanted you to believe. That you were weak. That’s what demons do. But you are still here and you are still you. You were plenty strong enough."

"But what if next time I’m not? What happens then?"

He knows what she’s asking of him and he can’t bring himself to put it to words. Can bear to think about what that might mean. He gathers her close. “I’ll protect you,” he whispers, a promise, and feels her sag in his arms.

Let that ease the burden from her shoulders, even if the promise lies heavy on his.


	5. E is for Eager

She joins him more frequently on the second floor of the rookery when the Commander is away, stretching her frame into the seat at the window, and often tossing her legs across his lap as they peruse the lacking selection of tomes Skyhold offers. She reads silently but her lips form out each word as she goes, hazel eyes scanning each line carefully, often pausing to think about a passage read or to make some note in the margins.

Despite his lackluster complaints he enjoys her presence. She is the first person he could call a true friend that he’d had in some time, perhaps ever, and she listens. She is good at that. She talks too, but it takes a while to bring her out of her shell. To learn what made her who she was today. He likes to hear about her experiences in the circle, not because he approves of the institution but because he was eager to know exactly what befell the mages in the barbaric south.

He knows though, as he always does, that she’s not completely there for him. The window looks over the main gate and sometimes when she loses her focus between pages she leans her head against the glass and just watches, waiting for a certain blonde-haired, ex-templar to appear.

"He’ll be back soon, dearest," he says without breaking eye contact with the page he’s on.

He calls her dearest and it doesn’t seem to bother her. Everyone of their merry band of misfits seems to have a different nickname for their leader. His is far from original, but it seemed fitting.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," she retorts coolly, but her eyes flick up and dart to the gate, closed against the outside world still. The long stone road leading into the keep is empty.

"I’m sure you don’t. Can you hand me Genitivi’s work?"

The book misses his head by centimeters and he cocks up an eyebrow as he peers at her from over the top of the tome he’s been engrossed in since this morning. “Really?”

She glares but says nothing.

The routine continues for another week and she grows more restless with each day, though she would never admit it. Her and the commander make such a fuss hiding the obvious. It was more than amusing.

Evie has just dozed off when there’s a muffled shout from below and the retinue of troops she’s been so eagerly awaiting marches through the gate. He pinches her toe and she jerks awake with a yelp. “Maker’s balls, Dorian! What was that for?”

He smirks and inclines his head towards the window. “Your commander is back. I thought you’d want to know.”

She leaps to her feet and looks out the window. A familiar head of blonde hair can be seen issuing orders and she doesn’t realize a fond smile has crossed her face until Dorian is leaning over her shoulder. “Oh, young love. So beautiful, so sappy.”

"Oh, shut it," she hisses but she’s smiling still.

"I’ll see you in a week I expect."

She stares up at him and sticks her tongue out. “You’re incorrigible.”

"I know, that’s why you keep me around."

She snorts, and it’s all rather undignified for an inquisitor, and he tells her so.

"And yet I still manage to pull it off," she quips and kisses his cheek. "See you tomorrow."

He grins. “Enjoy!” he calls after her.

Cullen has just closed the door to his office behind him and dropped his pack to the floor when two arms snake around him and a warm body presses itself to his back. Her heat warms him, even through his armor.

"Welcome back," she says.

"I’m glad to be back."

He turns and settles his arms around her, opens his mouth to say how much he’s missed her but she’s already pressing her mouth to his, teeth gently nipping at his lip, tongue pressing against his in greeting. He returns her eagerness with his own.

When they pull back she smiles up at him, “I missed you.”

He laughs and brushes the hair back from her face so he can press a kiss to her forehead. “I missed you too.”

Her hand brushes his cheek, fingers tracing the line of his jaw and running through the hair at his temples. Her hazel eyes are searching and when she smiles again he can’t help the appreciative rumble that forms in his throat. 

She always surprises him with her eagerness but he isn’t about to complain. 

Not when he’s just as eager.


	6. F is for Fluffy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because we really need a mabari in this game.

It’s the raven that takes the most offense to their newest team member’s presence. She croaks and hisses, fluffing out her feathers and clacking her beak to no avail. The puppy sleeps, content, in his new mistress’s coat oblivious to the objection.

It was love at first sight, according to Varric. Later he’d say it wasn’t what he was expecting when he heard these dogs bonded to their chosen owner. He was expecting some test of loyalty, some show of honor and endurance. This was…. fluffy. That puppy rammed her shins and wouldn’t stop whining at her, from his place on her feet, until she picked him up. No, it wasn’t what he was expecting but it seemed right.

Everywhere she went her shadow was right there with her. Going over troop movements in the war room? Asleep under the table. Drinking with Bull and the Chargers? Sprawled across Krem’s lap. Reading in Cullen’s bed? Wedged between the two. (Cullen swears it’s intentional. He can’t even kiss her without being interrupted by a warm body flopping on their feet.)

When the inquisitor leaves, before her shadow is grown, he whines and waits everyday for her to return and he’s the first one to greet her, the first one to garner her attention every time. There is no sneaking past him, and she wouldn’t want to.

"How are you, my lad?" she asks, bending over to scratch behind his ears and rub the offered belly. "Been good?"

But there are times she can’t bend over because her body is stiff, or because she’s injured to the point of being carted off, half-conscious to the infirmary. In those instances he follows her. He paces. He waits. He never leaves her side until she reaches out, fingers teasing the fur under his jaw or behind his ear. “I’m alright, pup,” she murmurs and he licks her fingers and nudges her too-cold hand. For once he lets Cullen bend to kiss her without interrupting. 

He grows quickly though and one day she whistles for him as she mounts her horse and he bounds after her, exuberant in his excitement. From then on she never leaves without him.

And he is her shadow and her protector…fluffy as he is.


	7. G is for Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU - featuring my warden, Cadhla Cousland (though no formal introductions are made).

Gray skies. Gray stone. Gray flags hanging limply from the ramparts with not even the hint of a breeze to rouse them.

The air is stale and even though it’s not hot the mood in the keep is heavy. No one is left unaffected by the events at Adamant. Skyhold’s people had filtered back, the inquisitor bringing up the rear, riding through the gaping maw of the keep’s main gates with her head bowed. 

"Inquisitor."

The voice is unfamiliar and belongs to a woman with piercing gray eyes, auburn hair, and a face that seemed oddly familiar despite Evie being certain they had never met. It’s obvious that she’s only just arrived herself as she’s untacking her own mount, paying careful attention to each piece of equipment as it comes off. Fingers trace each strap, checking for weak points and testing it’s strength. 

"Forgive me, I don’t believe I know you."

The visitor shakes her head, hair pulling loose from the messy bun tied back at the nape of her neck. “No, I wouldn’t expect you to.” 

Her voice holds some hidden emotion. Sadness? Relief? Defeat? Evie can’t be certain which. There’s something about the woman, perhaps in the hunch of her shoulders or the way exhaustion creeps through every movement. It’s a familiar look. One Evie herself wears often.

As she turns the heraldry of the wardens becomes evident on her breastplate, as dirty and battered as it is. She doesn’t remember seeing this woman at Adamant, but she didn’t see most of the wardens there. 

"Have you come from—-"

"Adamant? No," the other woman interrupts, grimacing in pain even though Evie can see no injury. "I only just heard and came as soon as I could. I was hoping you could tell me if they survived. If Warden Stroud, survived."

Loss flares in the pit of Evie’s stomach and her expression must betray it all because the warden’s face falls. Fingers poking through the ends of gloves that had once been whole press against her temples. “I feared…” she trails off. 

"I am sorry for your loss," Evie whispers. It doesn’t seem like enough.

"Don’t be. You did more than any others would have." The older woman sighs. "Will you—will you excuse me? I need to…think."

Evie nods, unable to find any other words that might help ease the burden on this lone warden. She watches as the woman walks away, shoulders once again bowed beneath a weight that is invisible but obvious. 

"In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice."

The words are so soft Evie almost thinks she imagines them.


	8. H is for Horses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU - featuring my warden, Cadhla Cousland.

Evie doesn’t see the woman again for several days but she knows she’s still in Skyhold because her spirited, fiery stallion is still in the stable. As soon as she had entered the stables she had been taken with him. He was a force all his own, as wild as the winds howling through the mountains. But he let her come to him; greeted her with flared nostrils and an arched neck.

"He’s from one of them wild herds that roam the steppes out west," Dennett comments from where he’s mending a saddle nearby. "They say they’re as smart as a mabari and as wild as a griffon, not broken but partners, and only on their terms. I’m surprised to see one here."

"Do you know who his rider is?"

Dennett shakes his head. “No. But he’s been a perfect gentleman. Not that he’s needed anything but food and water. Whoever he came here with takes good care of him all on their own.”

The horse in question whickers and bumps Evie’s hand, lipping at it gently. He is as red as some sunsets Evie’s seen and his mane and tail are almost golden in the light.

"I wonder what your name is," she says to him.

Dennett chuckles to himself, he’s grown used to her coming down to visit him as he works and she was sure he didn’t pay a second mind to her talking to his charges now as if they would answer her.

"His name is Revas."

Evie wheels around to find the woman in question leaning against the frame of the main doors. She hears Dennett leap to his feet, the quick movement surprising both of them.

"Your majesty!"

The woman holds up her hand. “There’s no need to address me so formally here, Master Dennett. It is good to see you again.” She steps up to the stall front and her mount—Revas—raises his head to blow a breath in her face in greeting. When he finishes what seems to be a ritual for the two of them he goes back to his hay. “Inquisitor, I apologize for not introducing myself when we first met and for making myself scarce the last few days.”

"No apologies are needed…." She trails off, unsure how to address the woman in front of her.

"You can call me Cadhla."

This was the Hero and Queen of Ferelden, and Warden-Commander of Ferelden’s order. It seemed so informal. Too personal.

She was not what Evie had pictured. The woman was unassuming here, standing before her with her hip cocked against the stall door. From all the stories that had been told over the past ten years Evie had expected her to be ten feet tall with lightning shooting from her eyes. But in reality she was barely an inch taller than her and her eyes were a clear, steely grey, but softer than she would have thought possible of such a color.

"Then I would ask you to call me Evie," she replies finally and is rewarded with a smile from the other woman.

"And you can just call me Dennett."

The two women laugh and Cadhla goes over to slap the man on the back. “How have you been? I’m glad to see your chargers recognized yet again. The finest horses in Ferelden for sure.”

He shrugs but the fine blush on his cheeks is enough to tell Evie he’s pleased. “It’s a worthy cause, tryin’ to fix the sky ‘n all.”

"That it is." Cadhla turns to Evie, "Speaking of which, might I have some of your time?"

"Of course."

Cadhla doesn’t begin to speak again until they’re outside. “I wanted to thank you again for what you did at Adamant. You faced insurmountable odds and yet came out on top and there are many wardens who owe their lives to you.”

The events at that fortress would haunt Evie for years to come. To think that such an order could be so compromised, so tainted.

"No doubt our order did not leave the best impression on you," Cadhla says and she clasps her hands behind her back as they walk along the pasture fences. Horses graze inside, oblivious to their presence. "We have a single purpose and sometimes pursuit of it leads some of my brothers and sisters to consider options they never would have otherwise. We are also susceptible to…outside influences as it turns out."

"I was shocked, to say the least," Evie admits. "But I have learned not to underestimate the depths of Corypheus’ depravity. When the wardens hear that you live they will be pleased. They were in search of someone who could lead them, a senior officer to follow."

But Cadhla only shakes her head. “I’m afraid I’m not the person they seek. I hold a title yes, and I’ve tried to do well by the Ferelden order, but I have little formal training. I was initiated during the blight and under great duress. What came to me came quickly and without consideration to my abilities.”

Evie stops and it takes only a second before the older woman does as well, turning to face her. “Something I said has upset you.”

"No," Evie assures her. "It’s just—if you had no intention of leading the remaining wardens then why did you come?"

In an instant the warden looks older than she is, head bowed, shoulders hunched, eyes full of memories she’d tried to forget. “I have been searching for something for a long time and I have left behind places, people, responsibilities…all the things that mattered most to me. But this—this was something I could not ignore.” She sighs and it’s heavy with a weight that Evie can hear but not fully understand. This woman has been through trials Evie could not imagine. Not even after all she has been through. She looks over at the horses grazing but her eyes are distant, somewhere else altogether. 

It’s a long moment before she continues. “Not only do the wardens owe you a debt, which I intend to pay, the sky is torn open and we are all in grave peril. My own agenda must wait. Assisting the inquisition in this is the only right thing to do.”


	9. I is for Illness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inquisitor is not invincible.

Even heroes aren’t infallible. That’s what they say, all the way back to Skyhold. Right to her face. 

By the time the party crosses beneath the great stone archway she is barely coherent and flushed with a fever. Dorian, who had teased her mercilessly before, now fusses over her, waving and calling for the surgeon. 

"Da sewjin, Dowian. Weally?" She groans as she is helped down from her horse by Bull. "Dey can’t fix dis. It has to wun its couwse."

"I’m sorry, as darling as you are with snot coming out of your nose and a fever to rival the heat of the Approach, I cannot understand you when you talk like that."

"It’s not on puwpose!"

"Okay, alright, let’s stop antagonizing the sicko," Bulk says, one arm holding said ‘sicko’ upright. "I’ll get her up to her quarters, do you think you can handle letting the others know?"

"I’m sure I can manage."

"Once I’m done I’ll _give you a hand_ ,” Bull says with an obvious leer. 

"For me, you’ll need at least two."

Evie rolls her eyes and regrets it instantly. Her head pounds even from the slight movement. “Ugh, ged oud. I can take cawe of myself.”  


"You can’t even stand up on your own, boss," Bull says and lifts her like she weighs nothing more than a feather, and she can’t lie, it’s a relief to no longer have to hold herself up.

"Danks Bull," she sighs and leans her head against his shoulder. 

She falls asleep to his bark of a laugh. “You’re welcome, boss.”


	10. J is for Joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything holds a certain joy to it when you're only just discovering it, as Evie learns.

"You’re ridiculous. You know that, right?"

Sera is bundled beneath at least three coats and seven scarves. The tip of her nose is as red as her tongue, which she is currently sticking out in Evie’s direction. 

"And why am I ridiculous?" she asks from where she’s laying in the snow, arms spread wide in pure, unadulterated joy. Skyhold had disappeared beneath a heavy blanket of snow and chased the majority of its inhabitants indoors. But not the inquisitor. Snowflakes drifted down and caught in her eye lashes as she peered skyward.

"It’s cold out here, yeah? You do feel the cold, right?" 

"But it’s so beautiful, Sera. Don’t you think?"

"No."

"Oh, come-on. Make a snow spirit with me," she pleads and waves her arms and legs back and forth in example. "Please."

The young elf makes an unflattering sound and recedes even further beneath her layers. “If I wanted to freeze my arse off as well as my tits I’d have done it by now.”

"Your loss." Evie smiles, despite her runny nose and watery eyes. It is bitterly cold but she couldn’t care less.

"What’s going on here?"

"Ugh, all yours Cully-Wully."

Sera stomps off, her breath puffing out in clouds behind her as she heads back to the tavern. When the door slams Evie looks up to the new arrival with a grin. “Lie down with me?”

"Uh…"

"Please?" She does her best to look up at him the way Shadow looks up at her. The same pleading expression that she can’t resist plastered on her own face. 

He relents with a patient smile and when he’s lying prone next to her she reaches out and takes his hand, fingers twining through his. “Thank you.”

"You’re—-you’re not wearing gloves. Why are you not wearing gloves?"

"I was," she tells him, "But I lost them about the time I was making snowballs."

He rolls his eyes and drags the hand he has hold of up to his mouth where his breath ghosts over her fingers. She hums appreciatively at the warmth.

She was lucky, she knew that. He humored her constantly in her sense of new-found wonder. There were so many experiences life in the Circle had robbed her of. The feeling of rain on her skin, the bite of cold at the tips of her fingers and toes during the first snowfall of winter. The blistering heat of the sun scorched onto her face when she’d stayed out in the sun too long. They were all new. All precious. 

And he had given her experiences as well. Ones she had long thought she was unworthy of. Her stomach twisted and fluttered with an unexpected warmth at the mere hint of a smile on his lips, only for her. The flash of surprise up her spine when he was there, a sudden heat at her back when she’d been so deep in thought. The way his hands crept up her arms, a gentle anchor to hold them together. A pool of anticipation and passion sitting heavy in her belly as he kissed her, caressed her, told her without words how much he loves her.

And she loves him.

His surprised grunt when she rolls over to kiss him makes her laugh against his mouth. “What was that for?” he asks when she pulls back. “Not that I’m complaining.”

"Just because," she says and kisses him again. "For humoring me."

He reaches up and tucks a lock of hair back behind her ear and smiles. “Always.” His arm is around her waist and he leans up to press his face to the side of her neck making her gasp and giggle. “To be honest, I thought you’d have had your fill of snow after your trek through the wilds to return to us.”

She shrugs and leans into his touch. “It’s not so bad here, when warmth and shelter is just a short walk away. Plus, I’ve never been able to really enjoy the snow before.”

"Really? Never?"

She shakes her head, “No. I mean I saw it from the window, but we weren’t allowed out in the circle very often.”

He studies her face, hazel eyes searching for something she couldn’t name. “Sometimes I forget…” he trails off, eyes dropping.

She seizes forward and kisses him soundly. “Sometimes I do too,” she whispers.

"Well, if you’ve never experienced snow before like this there are some things you need to learn," he tells her and hugs her close.

"Is that so?"

"Yes," he says, and his voice turns sly but she’s not quick enough to avoid the handful of snow he shoves down the back of her shirt. She rears back with a squeal and darts away.

"You fiend!" she cries as she shakes out her shirt. 

He rises to his feet, grinning. “Like I said inquisitor, when it comes to snow you have some things to learn.”


	11. K is for Killing

It’s Cassandra who finds her bent over a stream near camp their first night in the Hinterlands. She’s scrubbing her hands in the icy water and she’s really just grateful that the warrior hadn’t shown up five minutes earlier when she’d been emptying the contents of her stomach into a nearby bush, every memory of the day just past sending her stomach into violent convulsions again. Her mouth was bitter from the bile, her hands shaking and not just from the cold.

"You shouldn’t wander off."

"I haven’t run yet, Seeker." She swallows again, willing her stomach to behave.

"That’s not—- I just meant it is not safe here and I don’t want you to be taken unawares."

There’s something beneath the other woman’s taciturn demeanor but Evie isn’t able to identify exactly what it is. “Your thought is appreciated but I’m sure I’ll be safe so close.”

"I am not. We have discovered the bodies of those who expected they’d be safe all day. Their beliefs did not save them. Or have you forgotten?"

Evie shuts her eyes against the sudden surge of bile burning the back of her throat and sees the flash of sunlight on a dull steel blade. She hears the screaming, the shouting, the persistent chant of the rebel enchanters. Cassandra is shouting at her to get out of the way, the steady  _thwump_  of Varric's crossbow is loud in her ears, and all she can focus on is the templar lunging towards her.

She had acted without a second thought.

She had acted to save her life.

"Herald."

Cassandra is watching her, any expression she wears is hidden in shadow.

Evie bends and splashes her face with water, mouth open in a silent 'o' as it streams down her face. The cold helps, pulling her back from the heat of battle to the here and now.

"Today was the first time."

She hears rather than sees Cassandra shift on her feet. "First time for what?"

The templar hadn't cared that she wasn't a rebel mage. A mage yes, but no rebel. He was going to kill her regardless. He had tried to run her through before she had brought him to his knees with a bolt of lightning and then killed him with a shot of ice to his chest. His eyes had gone wide beneath the slit in his helm and they had been a brilliant green as he had gasped once, twice, and then collapsed. He hadn't moved again.

"The first time I killed a person."

"You fought---"

"Demons, but not people," Evie interrupts. Didn't they see the difference? Or were rebel mages and templars just as bad as the demons that fell from the breach? Was it all the same to them?

The other woman sighs and drops into a crouch beside her. "I was younger than you, but not by much. It was a routine patrol, nothing out of the ordinary, no trouble expected. They were bandits, weighted down by the loot from the previous night's score and unprepared, but they were vicious.

"It was kill or be killed."

Evie looks over at her.

"The boy was younger than me but he would not have spared my life and so I could not spare his. Of all the lives ended upon my blade since, I still remember the way it felt when I ran him through. I will always remember it."

"Does it get any easier to bear?"

Cassandra studies her for a long moment before replying. Evie doesn't miss the fact that she doesn't really answer her question. "You acted as you had to. He would not have spared your life, and he would not have stopped. You did the only thing you could to ensure you would survive. There is no shame in that. Do you understand?"

"Maybe one day that will help, but right now it just seems like a sorry excuse for me ending another person's life."

"He was a templar."

"And I'm a mage. Is that what you're saying?" Evie asks. "I am not one of those mages who bears a grudge against those set to guard her. I am not one who wishes them dead simply for being what they are. He was a son, maybe a brother. Perhaps he had a sweetheart back home who promised she'd wait for him, even if they both knew it was pointless. A calling to his order was an assignment for life. Maybe he was more than just my would-be killer."

"You can't do that. It will eat you up inside," Cassandra tells her. "He was a templar and he was going to kill you. That's it."

"I'm not sure I can do that," Evie says.

Cassandra rises to her feet and helps the younger woman up. "You must."


End file.
